Do you have time for a quick vote? Help tell the untold stories of numerous families with children with autism in Eastern Europe. Just 20 seconds of your time is enough to help finish this important documentary that will shed light on the crisis and begin the process of finding solutions!

Cultivate Wines is donating $100,000 to nonprofit organizations through an online voting contest. First place gets $50,000 and second through sixth place gets $10,000. This money is enough to help Matt Blick finish his post-production and release of a documentary that will change lives!

They are currently just 37 votes shy of 5th place and need your help! Simply click on the link below and follow the instructions to vote ONCE today and once tomorrow, June 30th.

This 30 minute documentary, titled “Not Forgotten,” exposes the secret of Autism in Ukraine and what can be done to aid and educate professionals and parents. Our primary mission is to aid in the education of professionals who work with Autism in Ukraine and to create a support system for parents of children with Autism. As well as producing this documentary, we will be translating several textbooks/books on Autism into Russian.

Our success stories with our cause has been that our writer, Tom Saxon, has worked in the field of Autism for the past 5 years, taking professional and parents of children with Autism who are Americans and have worked with teachers both on the university level as well as in the classroom. Their teams have successfully taught parents basic skills with living with and raising a child on the Autism Spectrum.

Inspiration

Tom Saxon, the writer, was a missionary in Ukraine for a couple of years and moved back to Alabama and started getting involved with children with Autism in his church. That then grew into a passion for helping children with Autism, their parents and specialists in Ukraine. I became fast friends with Tom 4 years ago from a production company internship I did down in Birmingham, AL.

History

During one of my visits two years ago, Tom was talking to me about his idea of doing a feature documentary about Autism in Eastern Europe and said, “I want you to shoot it.” Combining my experience in producing/shooting videos in Europe to Tom’s knowledge of the people, the culture and the need, we create a perfect team. Well, I could go into a lot of details from here but basically we ended up traveling to Kiev, Cherkasey and Odessa, Ukraine in May 2011 shooting interviews and footage of Ukraine for the documentary. We wanted to tell the story from the experience of the parents… describing their hopelessness, their love for their child and need for bringing a free-flow of information from the West to Ukraine.

The Give (Competition from Cultivate Wines)

Yes, Not Forgotten (our documentary) is participating in Cultivate Wines’ competition for non-profits. Cultivate Wines is a wine company in California and they give $100,000 four times a year to non-profits through a voting competition system. Voting is open from May 1st – June 30th. Anyone with a Facebook account can vote Once Per Day. This is key because many people think that they can only vote once and they’re done. By June 30th, 1st place will receive $50,000 and 2nd – 6th with receive $10,000.

We need to place at least 6th place or higher in order to win funds to finish our documentary. If we don’t place… this documentary won’t be finished. This is our most pressing need right now.

We have come to the point where were we are in the post-production phase (editing, composing, effects, sound design, etc.) of our documentary. If we can at least win $10,000, we can finish the documentary. This is why it is so important to vote for us in Cultivate Wine’s competition!